Hymn for the Missing
by chrissie0707
Summary: Tag to 1X02 "Wendigo." It's been a long night - a long WEEK - and Dean's beat to hell, exhausted and in a decent amount of pain, and he doesn't feel like holding Sam's hand. Sammy looks pretty damn wrung-out himself, though otherwise irritatingly fine, and he starts rummaging through the rest of the med kit like they're about to play Doctor. And not the fun kind.


_Author Note: This is a looooong overdue tag. I've always wanted to write an H/C tag for this ep, but I needed some context, a STORY, to go with it. And that's where Nova42 came in, as usual, with her pokes and prods and suggestions and sprinklings of fairy dust, to bring it all together._

* * *

 **Hymn for the Missing**

He drifts on autopilot across cracked, wet pavement toward the door of the motel room. His head is pounding, his vision is a crapshoot, and his arm is leaden. He has a hell of a time lining the key up with the lock, fumbles hopelessly for a moment before a warm hand closes over his numb fingers and drags the key away.

"Dude, I got it."

Dean startles, and his eyes sluggishly slide to where the Impala is parked at the curb and back to his brother. Somehow, on the short walk from the manager's office to the room, he'd managed to completely forget Sam was here. Old habits, and all that. Hell, he remembers with a start, Sam _drove_.

His brother gets the door open on the first try, the showoff, and stands aside for Dean to cross the threshold first. They'd needed to grab a room after only a couple of hours on the road, because they're both gross, Sam is exhausted, and Dean's not really in any position to argue or take a shift behind the wheel. Something about being beat down, dragged through the woods, and strung up like a slab of beef will really take it out of you, and he's definitely felt better. This is a halfway-decent motel, because his majesty Sam Winchester – formerly of holey blankets and hand-me-downs – now requires a certain water pressure in his shower and thread count in his sheets. If it was just him, Dean would have been perfectly fine stretched out on the Impala's bench seat in a parking lot somewhere with a couple of cold beers. Maybe an ice pack.

Of course, if it was just him he'd probably have been skinned and eaten by a wendigo by now, and not giving much thought to where he's sleeping tonight.

He comes to an awkward, wobbly stop in the middle of the dark room, unsure of what to do next. Sam flicks on the light, and Dean jerks away as the lamp between the beds flares brighter than his tired eyes care for. He turns back to his brother, wrinkles his nose and waves a vague hand. "We, uh, need the…" He gives up, appalled by the hoarse, broken sound of his own voice.

"Got 'em right here," Sam says softly, dropping their bags to the bedspread.

The tussle with the wendigo had gone quickly and not at all in Dean's favor, but he'd pulled himself together well enough and long enough to leave a trail for Sam. The presence of paramedics had been an inevitable conclusion to a bloody, long-ass night, and he'd managed to shrug and glare his way through their brief examination with no more than a couple of small bandages fixed over the deepest cuts in his neck and face. He can't hide anything now, moving stiffly as aches settle all throughout his body, and he's still covered in a fair amount of blood, dried and itching on his cheek, his jaw, the back of his neck.

Sam narrows his eyes and not-so-subtly suggests he wash up before he crashes.

"Nag, nag," Dean mutters, but he goes. He stumbles over his own slow-moving feet, catches himself against the wall. The light in the bathroom is even more torturous on his eyes and his pounding head, and he winces at his reflection, bruised and bloodied and ghostly pale.

This isn't exactly the outcome he'd been hoping for when he found those coordinates. Not to say _anything_ that's happened over the past few weeks has gone down like he's hoped. Dean's hand bumps the bulge of his cell phone in his pocket and he thinks of calling Dad. Of Dad calling. There's no way he could've known this was a wendigo. Right? No way he sent Dean into the woods after one of these brutal, blur-fast creatures without backup.

Right?

Either way, Dean's been in the game long enough to know he wouldn't be standing here if not for Sam, and Dad had no way of knowing Sam was gonna be around when he left the journal in that motel room in Jericho. That's about all the thinking he can handle at the moment, and Dean's suddenly way too damn tired to care about putting his father's mind at ease. _Thank God Sam was there,_ he'd say. Like that wouldn't set the old man off.

"Dean?" comes his brother's muted, tentative call from the other side of the door.

He braces his hands on the counter, drops his chin and swallows. "Yeah."

"You good?"

"Mm hm." It takes some effort to move from the sink to the shower, and he does it mostly for the sake of silencing Sam. He turns on the water with a flick of the wrist that causes him to wince, and as the bathroom slowly fills with steam he shucks his coat and long-sleeved shirt, leaving them in a pile of mud, blood, and cotton. Yeah, his wrists look like shit, red and raw and like they should hurt much more than they do.

His t-shirt is obviously stuck to an oozing slice on his shoulder blade that he'd not disclosed to his brother or the paramedics, and when Dean reaches up to tug the shirt over his head he's stopped by a vicious and familiar pain in his side. He leans against the counter, breathing shallowly and weighing his options as he stares at the bruised, bloody man in the foggy mirror. The residual ping of pain in his left side discourages any further attempts to remove the shirt, and he considers throwing up the white flag. Just giving up on the idea of a shower and collapsing onto his bed to let unconsciousness do its magical healing thing. But that hadn't worked out so well for him last time, and while the throb in his skull and the soreness in his shoulders might sleep off, this sharp ragging in his side that's screaming _hey, still broken here_ isn't going to be silenced with a nap. Also, he _stinks_.

"Sam," he barks thickly, throwing up a different signal of surrender before he has a chance to stop himself.

His brother enters the bathroom so quickly Dean would be surprised if he wasn't camped right outside the room. "Yeah. Hey." Sam's wide eyes make a rapid circuit of the small room, bouncing from his face to the running shower to the bloody clothes on the tile and back up to Dean. His face softens. "Need a hand?"

Dean exhales, lowers his gaze. "Whatever."

Even with permission, Sam approaches hesitantly, like he's cornering a feral animal in an alleyway. Like he's expecting Dean to smack him away. Not to say there isn't a truckload of examples to justify his brother's hesitance, but Dean's just too damn tired and sore. Sam pulls out a pocketknife and carefully cuts the collar of his t-shirt, rips it smoothly down to the hem.

A hiss escapes Dean's clenched teeth as the cotton stubbornly catches on the wound on his back before pulling away. He can't help but glimpse down at his troublesome left side, which is swollen and discolored with grotesque blooms of blue and purple.

Sam takes it all in, sucks in a breath. "God, Dean."

"Part of the gig, Sammy."

"Well, the gig sucks."

Dean meets his brother's eyes, raises his brows. "Can a guy shower in peace?"

"Right. Sorry."

He guesses any bit of the asshole routine he just threw at his brother could be interpreted as _thanks_. And yeah, okay, Sam might have had a point about the water pressure. Dean does little more than let the hot water pound against his shoulders until it runs cold, leaning on his palms against the tile and watching dirt and blood swirl around the drain before disappearing. He shuts off the faucet with another agonizing wrench on his already strained wrist, then stands dumbly in the middle of the bathroom with a thin towel wrapped around his waist until he shivers loose enough of his pride to shout for his brother to bring him a change of clothes.

"You look like crap," Sam comments as Dean finally emerges in clean sweats and the fresh t-shirt clenched in his hand.

Dean rolls his eyes, jams his left elbow into his aching side and shuffles wearily to the closest bed, where Sam has already relocated his duffel bag.

"You need a hospital," his brother amends. He's maybe not wrong, since it turns out wendigos don't take you back to their dank lair for tickle fights.

"Nah." Dean gingerly drags his bag closer, mindful of the pulsing thump in his head, and rifles through one-handed until he finds the first aid kit. "Just need some sleep." After he does something about these ribs. He comes up with a roll of bandaging, only to have his hand knocked aside.

"Let me do it," Sam says sternly.

Dean nods, bites his lip as his brother carefully, tightly stabilizes the fresh fractures.

"All right." Sam stands back, narrows his eyes appraisingly as Dean palms his side and sinks to the edge of the mattress. "What do you need?" he asks as he picks nervously at a splinter in his palm. Because the kid's a little rusty on motel room triage. Because he honestly _forgets_.

"You shutting up would be nice," Dean clips. It's been a long night – a long _week_ – and he's beat to hell, exhausted and in a decent amount of pain, and he doesn't feel like holding Sam's hand.

Sammy looks pretty damn wrung-out himself, though otherwise irritatingly fine, and he starts rummaging through the rest of the med kit like they're about to play Doctor. And not the fun kind.

With a hand pressed against his side and his bottom lip caught between his teeth, Dean scoots back to the headboard and leans back, tents a hand over his closed eyes. Through the pound in his temples, he hears a shuffle of plastic and a muted rattle of pills, knows his brother is getting his first good look at the stash Dean's amassed in his absence. The numerous bandages, the syringe and vial of morphine they hadn't been allowed to use without Dad present, the – _fuck_ – prescriptions for Cipro and Oxycotin, from that time with the thing. No normal, apple life out here, just teeth and claws and self-treated broken bones, infections setting in, sky-high fevers and coughing until the pictures rattle on the walls and the motel manager comes knockin,' calls 911 on your pathetic ass.

Sam doesn't stop with the ribs. He replaces the bandages on Dean's neck and face and nudges his shoulder until he twists his upper body with a sigh that should be a groan, then slathers that cut on his back with ointment and tapes down one more bandage. He pokes and prods the lump on the back of his head, inspect his bruised wrists.

Dean grimaces his way through the entire thing, rolls his eyes and rattles off his name and date of birth at Sam's urging. As his brother finally, carefully helps him pull the t-shirt over his head, Dean idly wonders if Sam even remembers whether that's right. He swallows roughly as the room blurs and spins, tucks his left arm tight against his side and narrows his gaze up at his brother. "We done?"

Sam nods, weary shadows under his eyes standing out starkly in his white face. "Yeah."

"Awesome." He drops his head to the pillow, pretty much full-up with consciousness for the foreseeable future. Except they're apparently not as done as his brother has led him to believe.

"Here." Sam nudges his hand until Dean opens his palm and his eyes, drops two tablets and follows it up with a glass of water.

Sam takes the glass back when Dean is finished, frowning. "Breathe normally," he says, like this is Dean's first goddamned rodeo. Anticipating push-back, he lifts his chin. "I know you're gonna say I'm just being dramatic, but you could develop pneumonia if you don't."

 _Little late for that, Sammy._ Dean huffs humorless and rolls his eyes, adjusts his sore body against the mattress and turns his face away from his brother.

Sam's gaze drops to the pill bottle in his hand, shifts back to the open bag at the foot of the bed. "Oh."

 _Yeah. Oh._

He hears the soft swish of Sam's jeans as he moves back to the kit, likely retrieving the bottle of Cipro. "Dean, these prescriptions are only four weeks old." Like he's telling Dean something he doesn't already know. Hasn't already lived.

The wendigo was fast but Dean's not fragile. The only reason his ribs snapped like fresh celery is they were already fractured, not yet fully healed. It was pretty selfish and stupid on his part, not disclosing the injury to his brother before they embarked on this hunt, but what the hell was he supposed to say to Sam? _Sorry your girlfriend was just murdered. Also, FYI, some nasty monster clocked me good a few weeks back and broke some ribs, then I got a fucking infection for not lettin' 'em heal right because no one was around to make me care enough to._

"This is a serious antibiotic." Sam shakes the bottle to drive his point home. "You're supposed to take the entire course."

Dean sighs, rolls his head back and opens his eyes. "Felt better." Not that it took much. It'd been days since he'd drawn a full breath, and he'd been getting winded just walking down to the friggin' vending machines. So, yeah, the second he no longer felt like he was burning alive in his own skin or his lungs held some personal vendetta against him, he figured the pills had done what they needed to do. Plus, Dad called him with details of the job in New Orleans.

Sam's not satisfied. Sam's _never_ satisfied. He just keeps digging. "When you came to Stanford…were you sick?"

His brother is literally holding the evidence in his fucking hands, so Dean just hitches a shoulder and tries for an easy smirk. "You think you pinned me that easy when I was a hundred percent?"

Sam's frown deepens, and he rolls the bottle in his palm. "What happened?"

 _A lot happened. Four fucking years happened_. Dean bites his lip and silences himself, closes his eyes again and waits for the warm comfort of the Oxy to settle in his aching limbs. Though the strain of it _sucks_ , he breathes normally. Like Sam said to do, like he knows to do, like he should have done last time. The job before the one in New Orleans. When Dean said _Dad hasn't been home in a few days_ what he meant was _Dad hasn't returned any of my calls in two weeks_. He's been hunting alone a lot longer than he'd led on. Jobs he shouldn't be taking on solo, just like this wendigo that his father maybe did, maybe didn't know about.

A mattress _creaks_ as Sam sits on the other bed. "You're really not gonna tell me what happened?" Quietly, and just as Dean's starting to drift off.

"Nope." Just like Dad won't hear about what happened on this hunt, should he ever choose to reappear. Dean might owe his brother his life right now, but he doesn't owe the kid stories of the exact kind of things Sam _knew_ would happen when he walked away.

He breathes normally, and he listens to Sam breathing from a few feet away. Sharp, quick pants as his brother works himself up and readies to verbally launch at Dean. Then rough, controlled nasal exhalations as he calms himself back down. Because – _holy shit_ – it looks like they're not gonna fight. For once.

"Dean, man…"

And Dean's wide-awake now, because this is The Tone. He can deal with Sam angry, with Sam indignant, with Sam condescending, but he wants no part of Sam explaining. Of Sam _apologizing._ His little brother's not the only one with pent-up frustration and a hair trigger, and Dean has no desire to hear what Sam's about to say. He doesn't need it, and what's more, Sam won't even really mean it. It's just been a long day.

"Don't," he says thickly. "I'm fine, Sam. It's fine." Like Pavlov's fucking bell, his chest aches deeply, right on cue.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there," his brother says anyway, looking down at his hands.

It's just been a long day, and Sam's shook. That's it. He's taken a hit, with Jessica, but Dean needs his brother to get up off the mat and get his damn head in the game. Because he _is_ rusty, and Dean's still toting around a hell of a lot of battle wounds and baggage himself. "Give it an hour or so," he says, digging the less sore side of his face into the pillow. "It'll pass."

Sam snorts, sighs. "Well, I'm gonna be waking you up in an hour or so to make sure your brain isn't scrambled, so I guess we'll see."

"Bitch," Dean breathes, but despite everything – or maybe because of it – what he means is _I'm glad you're here now._

And the "jerk" Sam hits him back with means _me, too._


End file.
